--- title: How To Create Expressive Character Rigs In Unreal Engine 5.8 description: Chris Pagoria, Senior Technical Animator at Epic Games, presented a session at Unreal Fest Chicago 2026 on building stylized facial rigs using Unreal Engine... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/how-to-create-expressive-character-rigs-in-unreal-engine-5-8-ambxbwts6 twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: How To Create Expressive Character Rigs In Unreal Engine 5.8 | daily.dev og:description: Chris Pagoria, Senior Technical Animator at Epic Games, presented a session at Unreal Fest Chicago 2026 on building stylized facial rigs using Unreal Engine... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/how-to-create-expressive-character-rigs-in-unreal-engine-5-8-ambxbwts6 og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/AMBXbwTs6.png og:image:alt: How To Create Expressive Character Rigs In Unreal Engine 5.8 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # How To Create Expressive Character Rigs In Unreal Engine 5.8 **[80 LEVEL](https://daily.dev/sources/80lv)** · 2 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Chris Pagoria, Senior Technical Animator at Epic Games, presented a session at Unreal Fest Chicago 2026 on building stylized facial rigs using Unreal Engine 5.8's Control Rig system. The talk covers creating clean controls, sculpting facial expressions and emotions, and combining bone-based animation with blend shapes. The session highlights the Zebra Character Sample as a practical reference for exploring UE5.8 animation workflows, including Direct Mesh Controls. Additional Unreal Fest sessions on Mesh Terrain, MetaHuman, and real game case studies have also been uploaded to the official Unreal Engine YouTube channel. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Get Started With UE5.8 Using Free Zebra Character Sample](https://daily.dev/posts/get-started-with-ue5-8-using-free-zebra-character-sample-u7iua2mrj) · 80 LEVEL · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Learn How To Create Animation-Friendly Rigs From Scratch In UE5.6](https://daily.dev/posts/learn-how-to-create-animation-friendly-rigs-from-scratch-in-ue5-6-jul6hf6hq) · 80 LEVEL · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Learn Realistic Character Creation with ZBrush & MetaHuman](https://daily.dev/posts/learn-realistic-character-creation-with-zbrush-metahuman-dgf5croes) · 80 LEVEL · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [Making a Realistic & Expressive Fantasy Adventurer with Unreal Engine](https://daily.dev/posts/making-a-realistic-expressive-fantasy-adventurer-with-unreal-engine-qwv163jf1) · 80 LEVEL · 7 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#unreal-engine](https://daily.dev/tags/unreal-engine) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/how-to-create-expressive-character-rigs-in-unreal-engine-5-8-ambxbwts6) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"How To Create Expressive Character Rigs In Unreal Engine 5.8","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/how-to-create-expressive-character-rigs-in-unreal-engine-5-8-ambxbwts6","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/how-to-create-expressive-character-rigs-in-unreal-engine-5-8-ambxbwts6"},"datePublished":"2026-07-20T13:51:48.631Z","dateModified":"2026-07-20T13:52:09.216Z","description":"Chris Pagoria, Senior Technical Animator at Epic Games, presented a session at Unreal Fest Chicago 2026 on building stylized facial rigs using Unreal Engine...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/5ad8cdbd1e42b99f05432a426375c5e1?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/5ad8cdbd1e42b99f05432a426375c5e1?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"80 LEVEL","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"80 LEVEL","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/t_logo,f_auto/v1/logos/78eebcd76c154e6bbfd565fed7dc4093","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/80lv"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/how-to-create-expressive-character-rigs-in-unreal-engine-5-8-ambxbwts6","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"unreal-engine","timeRequired":"PT2M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"80 LEVEL","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/80lv"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"How To Create Expressive Character Rigs In Unreal Engine 5.8"}]} ```